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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the concept of God do, in Edmund Wilson's account?

2. What do the arts need science for?

3. How does the empiricist view ethical reasoning?

4. What evolution creates culture?

5. Where do tangible phenomena evolve, according to consilience?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the difference between nurturists and hereditarians in describing how culture evolves?

2. What are the two branches of anthropology Wilson describes, and what question does he say they both fail to answer?

3. How do the senses function as epi-genetic rules?

4. How does art look through the gene-culture evolution paradigm Wilson offers?

5. How does Wilson describe the universality of art?

6. What is the fundamental assumption behind consilience?

7. What threats to contemporary culture does Wilson describe, and how is consilience useful in answering them?

8. What is the purpose of the social sciences, and how does Wilson distinguish the social sciences from the physical social sciences?

9. Where does ethics come from, in E.O. Wilson's account?

10. What does Wilson say the liberal arts should address?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does the advent of symmetric multiprocessing computing change the face of science and scientific knowledge? Specifically, how does the ability to crunch enormous amounts of information in multi-variable formulas affect the ability of scientists to describe nature? Does it create a favorable environment for consilience of all the sciences? Or does it reduce things to the laws of statistical probability and math?

Essay Topic 2

What kinds of situations or uses would consilience be best for, and what kinds of knowledge or what situations would not benefit by a 'consilient' perspective? What are the limitations of Wilson's consilience? What are the strengths?

Essay Topic 3

Wilson's book begins and ends with a call for better efficiency and use of knowledge in solving problems. To what extent is consilience really Wilson's response to the dangers of industrial modernism? Is consilience really about knowledge and disciplines, or is it about clearing the way for scientists to contribute their experience to solving problems?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 768 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample